He was the smartest man in the room, and that was saying something. It would be wrong to ­suggest that Albert ­Ekemode merely ­entered the auditorium at Birmingham Town Hall this week. More accurate to say that he arrived.

He was long and thin, which was highlighted by a tightly hugging brick grey suit, but the thing that turned heads was his hat, wide-brimmed and tan and angled so that nothing was left to chance. And there was no mistaking the smile.

It isn't often you get the chance to see someone's life changed utterly in the space of 40 minutes but to hear ­Albert tell it, that was what had just happened to him. He walked into the town hall a Nigerian. By the time he left, he was a British citizen. Easy to sit there and be cynical as he joined 90 others pledging allegiance and posing for photos before a portrait of the Queen, flanked by the Lord Mayor. But to Albert, 52, resident in the UK for the last six years and a CCTV operator, it was something. Everything. "I feel as if I am home now," he said, waving excitedly. "As if I have freedom now with all that brings with it. I can go anywhere in the whole world. I can walk tall."

I thought he had finished. He had barely started. "This is a country where you can sleep with both eyes closed. Where the chances are that you won't get robbed. Where you can build a house without tall walls.

"Where you can have any kind of car and no one will challenge you with a gun. Where the police are not lawless. I feel proud. Like I was born again today."

They weren't all like ­Albert. Sam Alim, a publisher of Bangladeshi origin, was happy enough to be welcomed into the community of British citizenry but said he already had a sense of belonging. For him, the best thing was a British passport.

But Yousif Khaledi, 26, a shop assistant who arrived five years ago from Iraq, was entranced by the talk of British values, diversity and demo­cracy. Enough to sing the ­national anthem when others were only mumbling. He may not sing it again, but that's OK. On any reasonable ­criteria, once is more than enough.